tempus fugit

Gun Violence and Gun Control

2018-02-17

This solution to gun violence is only a partial one, but it is practical and able to go under the radar on this controversial subject. The trouble is that, practically speaking, we as concerned citizens with children in school cannot force the entrenched Second Amendment fanatics to change gun laws or confiscate all guns (as was done in Australia.) The Second Amendment fanatics are just too strong. About a quarter of all Americans own guns, and there are about 300 million of them in circulation. What we can accomplish, with sufficient money from the government, is an attempt to protect all of the students most of the time in a practical way.

The solution, partial and temporary, is to hire former Special Forces soldiers who have children of their own to protect the schools. Use the carrot of good pay and retirement benefits to obtain highly skilled and experienced ex-soldiers. Bring them home from Afghanistan and Libya to protect their own children. Give them an alternative to working for Blackwater protecting rich scumbags in foreign countries. Post them, armed, one to a school; and put metal detectors at the entrances to every school.

The advantages of this plan are that, first, it is possible to quickly implement and there is a pool of experienced candidates for the post; second, it fits in with the prejudices of the Second Amendment fanatics: this is the plan they would have chosen if they were to decide what to do. The only question is a practical one: are there enough experienced ex-soldiers to guard every school?

According to Google, there are a total of 90,000 elementary schools and 36,000 high schools, both public and private, in America. There are currently 1.2 million service members and 800,000 reservists in the US armed forces. Therefore, obtaining at least 126,000 experienced, recently retired soldiers with children is conceivable if perhaps a slight stretch. Arming them would not be a problem. Installing metal detectors would present the most complex and difficult part of this plan.

The alternatives are either unacceptable or extremely problematic. Attempting to confiscate all guns would be a logistical nightmare that would only incite violent resentment among fanatics. Australia was able to confiscate all guns because there weren’t that many in the country to begin with.

Increasing mental health services and surveilling the susceptible population would be a huge endeavor and would likely involve additional infringements on personal privacy, possibly without providing any protection. The latest psychological analysis of the critical question “who will be next?” indicates that the process of incitement to violence among schoolchildren is already far advanced. Those who may be provoked have many examples to draw from, the most famous being such alternative “heroes” as Dylan Klebold. Thus, the next shooter is likely to come from a minimally disturbed background without major incitements such as being physically or sexually abused or alienated. Surveillance, therefore, would be difficult.

An example from the literature shows that the next shooter is probably a victim of Asperger’s Syndrome and so minimally disturbed that he or she would fit in readily. A sixteen or seventeen year old boy was apprehended with large quantities of incendiary and explosive materials and advanced, written and video plans to create mayhem. The boy had never gone through with his plans despite multiple opportunities. He fit in well in his school, had loving parents who were strict but gentle, and showed minimal signs of disturbance. He had a variety of Asperger’s Syndrome, which is like autism but much less obvious. He was sentenced to probation and psychiatric treatment.

Examples like this show that there is already a subculture of apocalyptic school violence in this country that goes back twenty years and has been getting worse steadily. A rapid, temporary response of providing armed, experienced guards to all schools could be followed by an extensive, long-term psychiatric surveillance program that eventually detects all the minimally disturbed children (as well as the seriously ill few) and puts them under treatment.

The only requirements for this plan are sufficient money to pay the guards and the will and experience to carry it out.